IRVINE : College’s Plan for Development OKd

The Planning Commission gave a qualified endorsement early Friday to a religious college’s plan to sell 40% of its spacious and hilly campus to housing developers.

After a six-hour public hearing that began Thursday night went past midnight, the commission voted 3-2 to recommend that Christ College Irvine be allowed to build 69 houses on the west side of the campus and 85 houses on the east side, scaled back from the originally proposed 349-home project. The hearing included praise and protests from neighbors of the college.

The final decision to allow the development rests with the City Council, which is scheduled to hear the matter April 14.

The two dissenting commissioners said the college’s proposal should be scaled back to allow fewer homes and that the college should be required to provide some kind of affordable housing in the Turtle Rock area in exchange for being granted the extra building rights.

“We really have to ask what is the community getting in return for this increased density,” Commissioner Richard Salter said. Salter proposed that the college be allowed to build homes only on one side of the campus, leaving the other side as permanent open space.

Allowing a college to convert land into for-profit residential tracts just because the college pleads poverty sets a bad precedent for Irvine, commissioner Kate Clark said. Clark joined Salter in opposing the project.

Christ College Irvine officials proposed selling the 19- and 28-acre parcels to developers as a way of raising enough money to repay the college’s $25-million construction loan. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, with which the college is affiliated and which borrowed the money to build the Irvine liberal arts college, has encouraged the college to retire the debt so the funds can be used for other church construction projects, college President Ray Halm said.

The college is in Irvine’s Turtle Rock community on land the city has zoned only for “institutional” purposes. Because homes would be a major change in the intended use of the property, the Christ College plan has been in the city review process for more than a year and has had three public hearings before the Planning Commission.

Selling the unused college land to a developer would allow the college to retire the debt without cutting into programs that serve students, Halm said.

The plan faced stiff opposition from some Turtle Rock residents, however. The opposition prompted the college Thursday to scale back its original plan to build 349 homes, a mixture of houses and condominiums.

Joseph Broderick, whose condominium would be about 120 feet from the proposed homes on the west side of Christ College, said he would rather see the city turn down the college’s housing project. But after he spoke individually with some of the planning commissioners and City Council members, he said, he realized the college’s plan had enough city support to proceed.

Assuming the college would be allowed to build homes, Broderick said his chief concern was to lobby for the best development possible. He praised college officials for working with Turtle Rock residents on a compromise plan that included fewer homes built farther away from existing homes.